This story appeared first in the Sunday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper.
If you got a Blu-ray Disc player for Christmas or uploaded a video to YouTube, you may have watched a movie or even created one using technology developed in the Madison area.
Sony Creative Software — a local division of Sony, the Japanese electronics giant - makes audio and video production technology used by amateurs and professionals.
In the IMAX film, "Grand Canyon Adventure — River at Risk," scenes that fly along striated canyon walls or raft through the roiling Colorado River were filmed in eye-popping three dimensions. Sony Creative Software's Blu-print translated the dramatic video onto Blu-ray discs.
Blu-print also processed the 3D animated movies "Open Season" and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" for release in Blu-ray format.
"There are only three programs in the world that can author or design a 3D, Blu-ray Disc for retail sale and one of those is Blu-print 6. We co-develop and manage that program here in our offices in Middleton," said Rob Aubey, manager of software engineering for Sony Creative Software.
About 80 percent of the 3D Blu-ray discs now available in stores were made using Blu-print, he said.
"It's amazing technology to be part of. To have it happen here in (the) Madison (area) is quite cool," said Dave Chaimson, vice president of worldwide marketing for Sony Creative Software.
Started with Sonic
Earlier versions of some of Sony's audio and video editing software were made by Sonic Foundry. The Madison company changed its mission after the
dot.com bust in the early 2000s and sold its editing products for $18 million to the division then called Sony Pictures Digital in 2003.
Since then, the software programs have been updated, upgraded and expanded upon several times.
For consumers, Sony's Vegas Movie Studio HD, revised last year, lets people edit videos in high definition at a price of $49. It has become very popular for posting videos to YouTube, for example, Chaimson said. "Content being published on social networking sites has really pushed sales," he said.
For professional customers, Sony's Vegas Pro 10 version released in 2010 added stereoscopic editing tools, allowing two video streams, taken simultaneously by two cameras mounted next to each other, to be married into a single image when viewed through 3D glasses.
The movie "Paranormal Activity" was made using Vegas Pro, which costs about $600, Chaimson said.
‘Underrated' software
Karl Soehnlein, owner of the Fitchburg video production firm Reel Wave Media, said he has used Vegas Pro products since the Sonic Foundry days, for both local and national projects. "I've always found it to be excellent software," Soehnlein said. "It is easy to use, powerful, and I think it's underrated."
Steven Springer, senior leader of the Advance K Ministries in Madison, said he and the church's media group, Triple 5 Productions, use Vegas Pro 10. "We can capture a Sunday morning message, then upload it on the Web," he said.
The Sony product is easy to use and quick to learn, Springer said. But he also likes Vegas because its "audio is far superior (to) any other editing software that's out there."
Triple 5 is producing documentaries using Vegas software. One recorded the contemporary Christian rock music bands the church brought to the Mifflin Street Block Party in May. Another will follow a trip to India by the church group in February, to see the outcome of homes built for children orphaned after the 2004 tsunami, Springer said.
‘On the bleeding edge'
Sony Creative Software's Madison area office is one of only two Midwestern U.S. production centers for Sony; the other is in Itasca, Ill. There are 80 employees here, down from 110 two years ago.
"We've ebbed and flowed over the last few years," Chaimson said. "Sony had cutbacks and we were affected."
Sony does not release sales figures for its individual units, but Chaimson said business has "really stabilized" ... and "demand for our products seems to be very strong." He said the division will soon add several employees.
In August, the company moved its offices from 1617 N. Sherman Ave. to 8215 Greenway Blvd., Middleton. The space offers training rooms to teach customers and product dealers how to use the software and two production studios to hone company products and hold video conferences. Live webinars are transmitted to the public from the studios once a month, with such recent topics as how to shoot holiday videos and how to edit them - using Sony Creative Software products, of course, which range in price from less than $50 to more than $50,000.
The Madison group's editing tools often are bundled for purchase with Sony cameras, so local staffers can get a preview of coming products to "make sure we support the format," Chaimson said.
Being "on the bleeding edge" of consumer electronics gives Sony Creative Software a chance to participate in products aimed at consumers worldwide, Aubey said.
"It is a little bit of a looking glass into the future," said Aubey. "It is exciting to work in that environment."
